End of the World
by Sufferer's Descendant
Summary: Jake English witnesses Dirk Strider's passing. How will he break it to the girls?


'It's not the end of the world, is it? It can't be...I don't believe that it is.  
But...it seems as if my world is screeching to a halt.  
Looking down now, at the body of my best friend. It hurts...to see him like this, he's invincible...so how could this have happened?'

'Why?'

Tanned hands shook as they reached out to caress the face of Dirk Strider, brushing away the blood from his pale face. "Dirk?" the voice spoke, shakily as those hands gently worked their way underneath the body of his friend. "Mate? Wake up.." the voice uttered, on the verge of hysterical desperation.

Tears threatened to fall, building up behind the glasses that Jake English wore. He shifted Dirk's body, resting his head in his lap while hands brushed through the platinum tresses of his friend's hair.

It's cold..and growing colder.

You are Dirk Strider and you have no clue where you are, you know you're not on earth and not on your dream world. It's just..dark. Pitch black around you, there's not a source of light that you can see yet you can find your way around. Maybe because there's no sort of obstacle, or maybe you can't see anymore. Whatever the case, you find it strangely eerie and it's giving you chills.

The dark has never been something that's bothered you before, but this was different. You were never alone in pitch black, you attempt to call out though there's nothing. It's as if though the darkness is swallowing everything up, stifling it until there's nothing.

It's a rather smothering feeling and you don't care for it too much. You ignore it for now and start off in a direction, it seems as though there's solid ground beneath your feet but your steps make no sound. As if you were just walking in air, there's not a single sound to be heard.

There's an echo, but it's not a comforting thing. It's the echo of the darkness around you, as if the very things around you, if there were any, were being drawn into a black hole.

You walked for what seemed like an age and a day when a voice echoed quietly, a ghost of a whisper almost. You knew that voice. Looking from side to side as if distinguish the source from everywhere else, you took off running in the direction you believe it came from.

'Jake!' You attempt calling out, though your voice doesn't quite make it out into the open. It's swallowed up immediately, even before it left your throat.

You growl, though that's swallowed up too, and keep on running. After several more steps, a light presents itself for you. You run straight for it, hoping that it'll break you out of this dark place. You're not tired, your body doesn't ache, which you find odd but you hardly care.

You keep running...running towards the light and towards that voice.

It seemed like forever, but you finally are able to look up at him. You're back in your own body...though you hardly knew how you came to be shunned from it.

You ache terribly...you don't know why, but you shrug it off.

You reach up, or attempt to, finding that the course of action is harder than the thought of doing so. After several minutes, you manage it and brush the tips of your fingers against his cheek. "English..." you breathe, your breath coming in short gasps. You hate the sound of your voice...it sounds weak...pathetic.

Despite that, you can't sober up and put force behind it.

His eyes widen as he looks down at the sound of your voice, "Dirk!" He cried, astonishment and relief evident in those deep green eyes of his.

You find yourself admiring their pretty color, the thought isn't all that revulsive to you. Not as much as it probably should be. You watch as tears build up and slide down his face, you sigh heavily and your body quivers from the action.

"Don't..." you utter, using your thumb to brush away his tears. "No wasting tears on me..." he manage, watching as he closed his eyes.

You just smile, accepting the fact that you can't make him stop crying, though it wrenches at your heart that he's crying. Crying for you.

"Don't..cry for me...Jake.. Don't..." you breathe with your last breath, your eyes closing and your body goes slack.

It's time for you to go, your time on earth is over. You'll just have to sit and wait for him to join you, hoping that he won't do anything stupid.

Your back in the darkness, though it's soon dispelled by a bright light and a hand is extended down with a rumbling voice. 'Come,' it says. 'It's time to go home.'

You reach out for the hand, you don't know why you're being trusting but you feel it's just right. You don't want to sit in the darkness anymore, you want to be able to live in the light and be able to watch all that goes on down where your friends are. Where the only people you ever cared for are. It'll hurt to watch day after day as they live while you're dead, but it'll give you some sort of satisfaction that they're living and not wishing for death or acting on any suicidal impulses.

Least of all, the one you knew you had fallen for. You couldn't even tell him in your last moments, you didn't have enough strength to form the words in your thoughts. You could only tell him to not waste his tears on you, that he'd ruin his pretty eyes.

You were pretty sure that if you were to tell him how you felt, he would have been revulsed by your confession. But, who knew? You would never know the truth about whether he would be sickened by it or not.  
Not for a very long time.

Until that day came, though. You would wait, you would watch over him and the others from your perch up on the clouds.

Jake's P.O.V.

"Dirk? Dirk!" You call to him, feeling his body go slack.

He had told you..not to waste your tears..on him. How could you even think about not crying for his death, he had slipped away. You had been here and there wasn't anything you could do to save him.

Tears are flowing freely now, you bury your face into his shirt as you hold him close. You cry, your tears staining his shirt along with the blood that had begun drying in the white fibers.

A painful howl escapes from your throat, it's sad and almost broken in a way. You want him to come back, to hear his voice once more. Strong and sarcastic, spouting those ironic phrases of his.

It's too late though, and you know it... You can only cry now, you can't bring him back. You can't bring yourself to plead, to beg and whine for him to return. You can't. He wouldn't have wanted that.

You end up falling asleep, crying over his death.

It is not until night fall that you wake, eyes burning and your own chest heaving from the effort. You look around sleepily, wondering briefly where you are before memory comes flooding back.

Tears sting at your eyes once more, but you hold them at bay as you look down at the cold form of your friend. You should inform the others...so they can at least come and attend your attempt of giving him a proper burial.

Whether they'll take the news well or even believe you, you don't know. But you have to try, you three...are all he had. And, now that he's gone. What does he have now?

Nothing, it seems. You scoop up his body, shifting so that you could carry it back to your home. You lay his body out on the sofa, going to retrieve your skull computer to pester the girls and inform them of Dirk's passing.

You know they won't take it well, Jane least of all. True, she hadn't known him all that well. But she still had come to form a friendship that was slow-blooming with him.

As for Roxy...you were pretty sure that she'd drink herself into a coma. Or try to, you thought that you would wait to tell her but that wouldn't be fair.

You return to the living room where Dirk's body lies, playing with his blonde hair absently as you sit on the floor.

Telling them would be hardest...because you know that they will not react well.

This isn't easy..and you can only imagine their reactions. Sighing, you open pesterchum and open two windows to tell them. 


End file.
